We took a moment to chat with three storied competitors of the AGE Open Series (one for each of the regions we represent) about the upcoming Players' Championships. They should all have a unique perspective on the keystone event of the AGE season, namely because they've all got different amounts of experience with the event as we only just started expanding outside of Los Angeles last year.

First up, Old Guard Peter Buddensiek

Peter is a seemingly permanent fixture at AGE LA. Even though he hails from Las Vegas, we expect to see him quite a bit each season. We'll go over his AGE accolades in the interview, but we mainly want you to know that he won the Player's Championship last year and he is well-positioned to do it again in Season IV. If he clenches the title again, it'll be an AGE first.

On with the interview!

You’re an AGE veteran on all counts. You’ve got 281 total points, a cumulative 72% win rate over four years, 12 top 8 Open finishes, you’ve qualified for every single Player’s Championship since we opened our doors in 2023, and you’re the reigning champ. How does that feel to hear it all broken down?

Yeah it's kinda insane to think about when you break it down. When AGE first started I felt I was still quite a young player playing card games with a lot of ideas but didn’t have the structure mentally to really capitalize on it. I just came off my best open season with my worst placing at an open being top 8 with 2 wins as well which is also insane to think about. I have definitely grown as a player through the years playing the circuit and I’ve been playing the best I’ve ever played currently and just trying to replicate my success and learn as much as I can every day.. 

We’ve grown to two new regions in the last two years, and we plan on expanding again next season. What advice can you give to players when it comes to succeeding at the AGE Open Series?

I think succeeding at AGE really just comes with the amount of time you put into the game. Flesh and Blood is a hard game with strong players and you don’t get a lot of free wins. Stick to your strengths and really try and use what you are good at, whether it's playing a value game, making clutch decisions at the end of the game, or deckbuilding, to allow yourself an avenue to show you are the better player in any given game and eventually you will get there.

AGE is all about bringing competitive FAB to local scenes that have an appetite for it. You’re…semi-local to LA in that you have to drive 4 hours each way to participate in these events. For some, that is a bridge too far. How do you stay motivated to keep doing those long days?

Yeah AGE really maximizes the competitive nature of FAB local scenes and it's definitely something I’ve always wanted to be a part of. The LA area has always had an amazing talent pool that are both passionate about the game and quite good at playing it as well. I’m from Vegas which is a 4 hour drive away which is quite the investment on time and energy but it's 100% worth it at the end of the day. To showcase my talents and growth through the years through competition is something that will always keep me going no matter how I do it and AGE has given me access to that for the last 4 years. Also, being able to talk so much trash to the LA community about how their region is being run by Vegas players keeps me motivated to show up every time lol. 

You won the LA Player’s Championship last year, much to the chagrin of the AGE Pro Team. Are you gonna do it again this year?

Winning is always the goal. I want to go back to back which hasn’t happened yet in AGE and this would be the perfect year to do it for me. 4 opens, 4 top 8 finishes with 2 wins is an insane year and the championship would be the cherry on top. I believe in myself as a player to do it again and I believe I’m the best player at the event so all that's left to do is bring the best deck for me and show why I’ll be back to back AGE LA champion.

Next, Pro No-Witness-Leaver Elyse Symmes

New England has been an Assassin hunting ground way before Arakni Marionette hit the height of their infamy. That's because of Elyse and a handful of other die hard specialists in the scene. Elyse qualified for the first Player's Championship in New England and, wouldn't you know it, she's done it again! This time, she's secured the first seed and will have her choice of turn order all the way through the Swiss rounds.

What does one run through the gauntlet teach you? We figured Elyse may have some insight:

You’ve participated in one Player’s Championship before, which makes you 2 for 2 on qualification in all the years we’ve operated in NE. You didn’t win, but you made it all the way to the Quarterfinals. What’s different about this year for you?

I am feeling much more confident this year after another season of AGE Opens. This season went well for me, so having first seed for the swiss portion of the event should be impactful. I am hoping to carry that momentum through the event to keep good seeding into the top 8. Choosing play/draw is significant when I am being the disruptor in the matchup, which is most of the time, so I’ll be able to go second into the midrange piles and go first into setup like Mech and Runeblade, of which I am sure we will have several.

Our Player’s Championship is scheduled for right after the release of Mastery Pack Assassin, which is excellent for Ka and me. I would love to bring Uzuri to the event, face down disruption is among my favorite things to do, and I am expecting her to get a lot from MPA. I doubt the room will be ready for Shake Down and whatever new toys she gets; it’s been a while since Uzuri was seen as a competitive deck. Bonus upside with the MPA cards being new to my opponents.

Is there anything in particular that you learned about the format last year that you’ll carry into this year? Any edges you can gain when it comes to your strategy?

Knowing your round 1 pairing months in advance is something I didn’t really optimize for last time, but I will be making a more deliberate point of it this time. The rest of the rounds are random, but that first round cannot be dodged. This year I have Dan Flavin, a local Mechanologist player, for my first round, and I think I can work with that. I’m expecting Runeblade from several of the players, so Warmonger’s gets points. Paul and Justin have a history of different sorts of Oscilio, so some tech for Gone and tall arcane will be brought.  Martin is a Teklovossen enjoyer, so including a Scale Peeler is pretty high upside. Levia seems very strong coming out of IAR, and I expect some players to bring her, perhaps Josh and Noah with their history on Kayo. I would love to be wrong about that one though as I don’t want to deal with Blasmophet and friends.

The open decklists prior to the event gives the opportunity to plan very specifically for everyone at the event, provided I register the right tools. Identifying what matters into each pile and getting a count of reactions and instants is great information to have before the game. The team and I intend to try the matchups before the event and see how things feel, to inform the sideboard and play/draw decisions. 

It’s no secret that you’re a specialist in your region. Heck, you’ve written two Assassin primer articles for AGE Premium. Do you think the Player’s Championship tournament structure helps you or hinders you?

It’s a mixed bag, but I think it can be made into something mostly in my favor. The public decklists I think are the biggest factor, and the disruptive assassins I like to play want to know what the opponent has brought to the table. I will be able to identify what matters in each matchup ahead of the event, which will help with game plans for each of the competitors. 

The invitational nature of the event makes the deckbuilding puzzle very different, but foreknowledge of the 15 potential matches is a boon to reactive decks I think. An aggro pile has a core of proactive pieces that are hard to mess with, but the control leaning decks have a lot of room to tailor to a field.

My opponents knowing what Attack Reactions are available to me makes bluffing more complicated, if they see I have no Just a Nick registered, they can disrespect the Persuasive Prognosis. As of now, I am thinking that a few one-of reactions could be good to keep people respectful and wary. Spreading Plague, Shred (r), and Just a Nick are the current contenders, but I assume MPA will give us even more mixups to threaten. These inclusions get bonus psychic damage even if you leave them in the sideboard.

Finally, Record Breaking First-Timer Jason Feng

Last, but not least is our representative from the newest AGE circuit: St. Louis. We usually say that you either need to be extremely consistent, or spike hard in order to qualify for our invitational. Jason Feng decided to do it both ways. He attended all eight opens in AGE STL's first year and he made top 8 at SIX OF THEM. As a result of his incredible performance, he's set the record for most AGE points accumulated in a single season and made himself a player to watch when we go live on October 10th.

He's also just an awesome person. Don't believe us? We'll let Jason speak for himself:

AGE is brand new in your region, which means you’ve qualified for the very first Player’s Championship in St. Louis. What does that mean to you and what do you think it means to your local scene? 

I’m really glad we were able to get an AGE circuit in St. Louis! The biggest roadblock to attending larger tournaments like Callings is traveling and all the logistics that come with it, so having a monthly tournament circuit nearby is a great opportunity for our local scene to get together and compete. What we can call our “local” scene is pretty scattered, with some of us living over an hour away in opposite directions from any given LGS, so it’s a great excuse for us to make the drive out there when we would otherwise not be able to make it for an Armory. Also a huge shoutout to the people making multihour drives to attend each month, as I think seeing the game continue to draw a healthy crowd does wonders for our community when there have been so many other TCGs popping up in the last few years. My hope is that our local scene continues to grow when people realize Flesh and Blood has a fantastic gameplay loop and is a great competitive outlet, and that we can continue to foster a welcoming and friendly environment for new players to join us.

You’ve set the record for the most AGE points accumulated in a single season (138), trumping the previous record (117) set by Pheano Black in New England last year. Does it feel monumental to you, or is it hard to grasp since it’s your first season with us? 

In all honesty, I started playing Flesh and Blood because it was my competitive outlet. Before that I was playing a lot of Magic, but mostly just Commander for the social aspect. FaB gave me a space to compete in a 1v1 setting and really test my strategy and decision making skills, as well as giving me ample room to improve. Being provided a rating and having the AGE points as a metric and seeing those numbers go up certainly scratches my competitive itch. It’s great to have that validation and know I’m a strong player, which gives me a sense of satisfaction and confidence since one of my goals for this game is to be good at it. When I first heard I was making a run for the record, it definitely lit a fire under me to finish as strongly as I could. Unfortunately I fell flat in the last few events, either losing at Top 8 or even missing top cut to really set it as high as I could. What’s awesome though is I think it’s still a somewhat attainable goal for others to beat. At 17.25 points per event, it requires a slightly higher than Top 8 placement at each event which is no simple feat, but I think what really helped was just showing up to every AGE Open. I have no doubt someone will beat my record next year in the 2027 circuits!

The AGE Player’s Championship features a pretty unique structure. The swiss format is unlike anything in the World Tour, you know your R1 opponent and you’ll have time to prepare for every player’s specific 80. Are you planning on employing a specific strategy, or are you just hoping the fundamentals that got you here will work just as well in the PC? 

I think the one thing I never do enough of is preparing for larger tournaments, so that is definitely something I’m hoping to change! Not knowing where to start is usually one of my bigger problems, but this will be different since I know exactly what everyone will be playing and what matchups I need to learn and practice. I’m definitely going to have to improve and strengthen my fundamentals if I want to emerge on top of this field of players. I’ll most likely be playing as many games as I can against the heroes I will be seeing in the PC, as well as drawing on the collective knowledge of other FaB players to see how these matchups go. Most importantly, I’ll be playing at least a few games on each of the submitted decklists to get a feel for their gameplans and how they want to navigate their turns. The whole “know your enemy” thing, you know? Either way, I think as long as I feel like I’ve prepared enough for this event, I should be satisfied with whatever outcome I end up having. At the very least, I’ll tell myself that and hope it pans out more positively than not.

You may have also noticed that we love it when the PC happens right after a new product release. Any thoughts on what IAR will do to the St. Louis metagame? 

I know there are definitely more than a few Shadow and Runeblade enjoyers in St. Louis, so I expect IAR to shake things up quite a bit. One of my concerns is how strong Viserai and Levia will be with the release of IAR, and whether or not I’ll be prepared to take them on. One of the concerning things for an Assassin enjoyer like myself is that a lot of our disruption comes in the form of banishing, which is much less effective against Shadow heroes, especially with the new Gate to i’Arathael tokens. I think overall having a fresh meta to play the PC in will be awesome, I may just have to reconsider my deck/card choices in anticipation for the new set. I’ve also considered bringing one of those heroes myself, but there is definitely a disadvantage in playing less tested/solved strategies, as well as the hurdle of procuring the actual cards. At the moment my plan is still to rep Arakni, Marionette and hope that deck continues to do powerful things in the new meta.

Players' Championships Schedule

Now that you've learned about some of the incredible people that'll be competing in our year-end events, you may be wondering how you can feast your eyes on the action. Watch Jason, Peter, and Elyse do battle (respectively) on our Youtube Channel at the dates below:

AGE STL: SAT October 10th, 2026
AGE LA: SUN October 18th, 2026

AGE NE: SAT November 21st, 2026